As The Moon Dies
By Marcus Dwemer '' '' Like fingers, lovely birch tree shadows play on virgin snow like hands upon a sheet; so bright the moon, it seems like light of day, but stars among the forest's members peek. And while my love lies pleasantly at rest, I dream awake and contemplate my muse; enraptured by this scene on winter's breast where thoughts are drawn and peacefully diffused. So now I look upon the face of time and all my years of life become but one. In timelessness I feel my spirits climb where thoughts of love and life can laugh and run. Now I am left at peace and free to be, there lost within the moon's tranquility. Singing songs of love While we lie on softened lawn Neath the dreamy moon. . I am the moon hanging solitary in the sky watching sails fluttering by breathlessly against the wind. I'm just a rock ,dark,unknown without a light that is my own. Yet He ,He sees hues I cannot see and the true colours in me. He, He is familiar to my face This face that shines less brightly without his full embrace. He is the sun, He is the one Never so close , always too far yet still staying behind me . He casts his softest glow reflecting orange and soul, He penetrates his warmth A fire ball of wants , Then fades ,fades away in the horizon. He is the sun, He is the one in a universe of nothingness . He fills our gaps,hopes and regrets Never so close ,always too far yet still staying behind me. I am the moon ,He is the sun He is the one...He is the one Expect nothing. Live frugally On surprise. become a stranger To need of pity Or, if compassion be freely Given out Take only enough Stop short of urge to plead Then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger Than your own small heart Or greater than a star; Tame wild disappointment With caress unmoved and cold Make of it a parka For your soul. They who feel death close as a breath Speak loudly in unlighted rooms Lounge upright in articulate gesture Before the herd of jealous Gods Fate finds them receiving At home. Grim the warrior forest who present Casual silence with casual battle cries Or stand unflinchingly lodged The king of sighs crossed the milky smooth crystal river, with moon reflecting from her creamy face. Dreams of germination pass between seed to stand tall one day to shade his noble, majestic path. Stars, low, bright and dusty, sing and mingle with the yawning moonlight. It's a new spectral dawning, diamonds strewn across the sky. Rainbows rise up like aurora. S'o swiftly snow cascaded wide and deep '''N'ow pristine blankets of white wonder gleam 'O'nly the moon observes while earth's asleep 'W'ith snowfall magic and its peaceful dream. You hear these words as the moon die. The moon is talking to you. Veiled behind clouds of dark night, struggling to catch up with the breeze, Ghoulish moon draped in serene white, rolled fast to bewilder with its dazzle ! The night was green when last he saw it - not black as heretofore ... The night was green, and the boats right to the shore. The moon was green when last he saw it... not white as heretofore - a different green from enclosed night - pale and not itself. The stars were green, as one by one he looked at them twinkling in the Milky Way. "Who would want milk now?" thought on ... Not him, in this green world so sudden. The softness of reflected light That helps all lovers in the night And causes women soon to swoon - Oh, Shine on bright and faithful moon. Cast your beams, let your light yield, As lovers lie in golden fields - A soft and gentle shining care - A glow upon your lovers there. By tired streets where lamplight fades, Stress and strain groan with tragic stench; Putrid air swirls in strange retort, No soul in flight can alter tense; Fog and smog fill the choking breeze, Watch now the squeeze of languid hours; Seasons not done with damp and drone, The dying moans of lost cause here; Yet loss finds cheer in naked truth, Unforeseen waves climb up the stairs; Odd nonsense sums the maze uphill, Crazy hazy outcomes ignored; No word can bridge lost metaphor, Glimpse toilsome route beyond disdain. The moon calls out to you. You hear it sing, as the moon dies. Singing songs of love While we lie on softened lawn Neath the dreamy moon. ' ' Asked how old he was, the boy in the new kimono stretched out all five fingers. ' ' Blossoms at night, and the faces of people moved by music. ' ' Don't worry, spiders, I keep house casually. ' ' In spring rain a pretty girl yawning. So dark and scary out there tonight I can always rely on the bright moon Keeps me safe as I walk home alone Halloween moon don't leave me soon ' ' It was the year of the dark yellow moon When the cold winds came And the oceans turned green Before running out from shore It was the dawdling year A year sadness fell from our eyes Like an eruption of hammering storms The type we kept in the gardens Just around the block By the Stop and Shop It was the year the dog died The year we placed him on a board And all the children wore black Carrying him home Like a soldier returning from war ' ' Beneath shining wolfish moon's silhouette light cascading down upon our sweet earth. Halloween spiders with their webs dead set new victims racing for all they are worth. ' ' The natural satellite of the earth, The lunar reflection after sunset, The Halloween moon bows down, Feeling all the children's tiny footsteps. ' ' '''You hear the moon cry as it dies. We follow the half-moon still drenched. Our fused shadows--- eternity. She breathes; inhaling our scent, Embracing our glowed night…completely. For as there are persons who, by conscious art or mere habit, imitate and represent various objects through the medium of colour and form, or again by the voice; so in the arts above mentioned, taken as a whole, the imitation is produced by rhythm, language, or 'harmony,' either singly or combined. Thus in the music of the flute and of the lyre, 'harmony' and rhythm alone are employed; also in other arts, such as that of the shepherd's pipe, which are essentially similar to these. In dancing, rhythm alone is used without 'harmony'; for even dancing imitates character, emotion, and action, by rhythmical movement. Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of this in the facts of experience. Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The claim to Comedy is put forward by the Megarians,—not only by those of Greece proper, who allege that it originated under their democracy, but also by the Megarians of Sicily, for the poet Epicharmus, who is much earlier than Chionides and Magnes, belonged to that country. Tragedy too is claimed by certain Dorians of the Peloponnese. In each case they appeal to the evidence of language. The outlying villages, they say, are by them called {kappa omega mu alpha iota}, by the Athenians {delta eta mu iota}: and they assume that Comedians were so named not from {kappa omega mu 'alpha zeta epsilon iota nu}, 'to revel,' but because they wandered from village to village (kappa alpha tau alpha / kappa omega mu alpha sigma), being excluded contemptuously from the city. In the second rank comes the kind of tragedy which some place first. Like the Odyssey, it has a double thread of plot, and also an opposite catastrophe for the good and for the bad. It is accounted the best because of the weakness of the spectators; for the poet is guided in what he writes by the wishes of his audience. The pleasure, however, thence derived is not the true tragic pleasure. It is proper rather to Comedy, where those who, in the piece, are the deadliest enemies—like Orestes and Aegisthus—quit the stage as friends at the close, and no one slays or is slain. In respect of Character there are four things to be aimed at. First, and most important, it must be good. Now any speech or action that manifests moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character: the character will be good if the purpose is good. This rule is relative to each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour; but valour in a woman, or unscrupulous cleverness, is inappropriate. Thirdly, character must be true to life: for this is a distinct thing from goodness and propriety, as here described. The fourth point is consistency: for though the subject of the imitation, who suggested the type, be inconsistent, still he must be consistently inconsistent. As an example of motiveless degradation of character, we have Menelaus in the Orestes: of character indecorous and inappropriate, the lament of Odysseus in the Scylla, and the speech of Melanippe: of inconsistency, the Iphigenia at Aulis,—for Iphigenia the suppliant in no way resembles her later self. As in the structure of the plot, so too in the portraiture of character, the poet should always aim either at the necessary or the probable. Thus a person of a given character should speak or act in a given way, by the rule either of necessity or of probability; just as this event should follow that by necessary or probable sequence. It is therefore evident that the unravelling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the 'Deus ex Machina'—as in the Medea, or in the Return of the Greeks in the Iliad. The 'Deus ex Machina' should be employed only for events external to the drama,—for antecedent or subsequent events, which lie beyond the range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or foretold; for to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing all things. Within the action there must be nothing irrational. If the irrational cannot be excluded, it should be outside the scope of the tragedy. Such is the irrational element in the Oedipus of Sophocles. Again, the poet should work out his play, to the best of his power, with appropriate gestures; for those who feel emotion are most convincing through natural sympathy with the characters they represent; and one who is agitated storms, one who is angry rages, with the most life-like reality. Hence poetry implies either a happy gift of nature or a strain of madness. In the one case a man can take the mould of any character; in the other, he is lifted out of his proper self. As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail. The general plan may be illustrated by the Iphigenia. A young girl is sacrificed; she disappears mysteriously from the eyes of those who sacrificed her; She is transported to another country, where the custom is to offer up all strangers to the goddess. To this ministry she is appointed. Some time later her own brother chances to arrive. The fact that the oracle for some reason ordered him to go there, is outside the general plan of the play. The purpose, again, of his coming is outside the action proper. However, he comes, he is seized, and, when on the point of being sacrificed, reveals who he is. The mode of recognition may be either that of Euripides or of Polyidus, in whose play he exclaims very naturally:—'So it was not my sister only, but I too, who was doomed to be sacrificed'; and by that remark he is saved. A Syllable is a non-significant sound, composed of a mute and a vowel: for GR without A is a syllable, as also with A,—GRA. But the investigation of these differences belongs also to metrical science. A Connecting word is a non-significant sound, which neither causes nor hinders the union of many sounds into one significant sound; it may be placed at either end or in the middle of a sentence. Or, a non-significant sound, which out of several sounds, each of them significant, is capable of forming one significant sound,—as {alpha mu theta iota}, {pi epsilon rho iota}, and the like. Or, a non-significant sound, which marks the beginning, end, or division of a sentence; such, however, that it cannot correctly stand by itself at the beginning of a sentence, as {mu epsilon nu}, {eta tau omicron iota}, {delta epsilon}. A Noun is a composite significant sound, not marking time, of which no part is in itself significant: for in double or compound words we do not employ the separate parts as if each were in itself significant. Thus in Theodorus, 'god-given,' the {delta omega rho omicron nu} or 'gift' is not in itself significant. A Verb is a composite significant sound, marking time, in which, as in the noun, no part is in itself significant. For 'man,' or 'white' does not express the idea of 'when'; but 'he walks,' or 'he has walked' does connote time, present or past. Again, Ariphrades ridiculed the tragedians for using phrases which no one would employ in ordinary speech: for example, {delta omega mu alpha tau omega nu / alpha pi omicron} instead of {alpha pi omicron / delta omega mu alpha tau omega nu}, {rho epsilon theta epsilon nu}, {epsilon gamma omega / delta epsilon / nu iota nu}, {Alpha chi iota lambda lambda epsilon omega sigma / pi epsilon rho iota} instead of {pi epsilon rho iota / 'Alpha chi iota lambda lambda epsilon omega sigma}, and the like. It is precisely because such phrases are not part of the current idiom that they give distinction to the style. This, however, he failed to see. It is a great matter to observe propriety in these several modes of expression, as also in compound words, strange (or rare) words, and so forth. But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances. The moon explains, as the moon dies. Frightening eyes stare, they are not eyes of humans: beware when they blink; be very watchful...let nobody smother you with their sweet laughter, behind those masks are spooky faces, although their costumes are sleek; look up, night becomes darker! Clouds hide the moon's glare while owls scatter! Phantoms grin at humble Snowhite, but cheer at Dracula showing his red teeth, no armored knight frightens them, but crosses on his shield make them fall; saints march to subdue skeletons rising from the gruesome graves underneath; they recite prayers with Latin words that have the power to intimidate them all! Hazy moon Tranquil waters Harmony found Harumangetsu Yorokonde warau Yoru no hana Spring full moon Laugh with pleasure Night blossoms Natsu no tsuki Jukuko shizukani Aiko-ka kansho Summer moon In quiet contemplation Watching lovers Natsu mangetsu Go michi o tento shi Yasashi-sa to Gaia colors rustic image Artemas' canvas celebrates Awed through universal coverage Thrilled voices reverberate The dark sky beckons the celestial mage With age-old runes and devilry When shadows begin to cover the moon A cloud wafts by and laughs at me I shall now rise In The Event Of My Ascension Take my seat Among the elite And behold from on high My foes demise. In the morning As she hastily opens the door The verandah sits waiting With the milk packet, the newspaper Or the new born kittens of the night before In its lap. Mother rubs mirror-clean The verandah With the softest velvet cloth. In the heat of the noon, She sleeps pressing close to its belly. Perhaps the verandah Creeps in to the kitchen Quietly through open doors When alone. These are the moon’s final words, As the moon dies. Category:Poetry